Category Archives: Piedmont Housing Alliance

C4K provides enriching programming in our community for kids like Johnny, a teenager at Friendship Court. We asked Liz Hoeppner, grants and communication manager at C4K, to share information with us about the program.

In the heart of IX Park, every day after school, youth and their mentors make digital apps, music, videos, robots, rockets, video games, websites, 3D models and forever friends. C4K (Computers4Kids) youth member and Friendship Court resident, Johnny, aged 12, has been documenting a ‘behind the scenes’ view of C4K life.

Tyrann C4K Member and Friendship Court Resident in Video Studio

“I love to meet with my mentor, Juan. He cares about me. We just finished building a scavenger-hunt video game together using Roblox. I am also developing my photography portfolio.” – Johnny.

“C4K is a place for my boy to flourish. I love it. C4K is a place where being a nerd, is totally cool.” – Shay, Johnny’s mom & Friendship Court resident.

Elesia in Audio Studio at C4K

“Charlottesville Schools depend on strong evidence-based programs like C4K to supplement what we do every day in the classroom. It is a joy and privilege for me to be a supporter and mentor with C4K.” – Juandiego R. Wade, Johnny’s mentor & Charlottesville School Board Member.

C4K (Computers4Kids) is an out-of-school mentoring nonprofit. We want our youth members to have choice in their lives, as choice represents freedom. We provide the knowledge, experiences, and skills – through mentorship and high-quality, STEAM-based programming – for middle and high school youth from low-income families to have choice. All projects are youth-driven, fun, project-based and directly applicable to real-world opportunities. Since opening in 2001, 97% of our youth have graduated from high school (local rate: 85%), and 92% went on to college.

Inside the colorful community center at Friendship Court, a team of volunteers got on their hands and knees and scrubbed down floors and windows to make the center shine as a vibrant, welcoming place for children and teens to hang out each day after school.

On Wednesday, September 20, 2017 nearly 2,000 people participated in the United Way Laurence E. Richardson Day of Caring taking place at about 100 non-profits and schools throughout the Charlottesville area, including a clean-up project at Friendship Court and raised garden bed building at Crozet Meadows/Meadowlands Apartments.

Eight employees from Jefferson Scholars Foundation gathered early in the morning outside the Friendship Court Community Center where Claudette Grant, community organizer, shared what needed to be done to help spruce up the center. The team spent the morning as well as part of the afternoon scrubbing the walls, floors, and windows of the center until they were spotless, doing the kind of deep cleaning that never happens often enough. Others canvassed the grounds of Friendship Court, picking up trash to beautify the community space.

Robbyn Minnis, one of the volunteers from Jefferson Scholars Foundation said, “I’ve participated in the Day of Caring four or five times now, which I personally think is just a great way to give back to the community as well as being a great team building experience. Everyone was really excited to be participating in such an event which is in line with the values of our foundation.”

In Crozet, four more volunteers from PRA Health Sciences were carrying large 6×6 posts to form raised garden beds for the Crozet Meadows/Meadowlands Apartment communities. Despite the heat of the day, they measured and drilled holes with Maintenance Technician, Nathan Smoot and Chief Operating Officer, Karen Reifenberger. By the end of the afternoon, they had built two beautiful raised garden beds, fulfilling residents’ interest in having a place to gather to garden and build community. Crozet Meadows and the Meadowlands Apartments provide 96 affordable homes to low-income seniors. PRA Health Science employee Lauren Haberland said, “We so enjoyed our day with Karen and Nathan, and we cannot wait to see the garden bed full of fresh veggies!”

Day of Caring Coordinator, Megan Borishansky added, “I feel fortunate to be part of such a caring community, and to have the opportunity to play a role in bringing people together for a constructive cause. The Day of Caring honors the individuals volunteering their time, helps them build relationships as teams, and connects them with the missions of non-profits and schools that they might not come into contact with otherwise. This is what I love about the Day: each project serves as a piece of the greater puzzle dedicated to building community and honoring the best in each other.”

The United Way Day of Caring in the Charlottesville area was established in 1992 by the United Way-Thomas Jefferson Area to promote the spirit and value of volunteerism, increase the awareness of local human service agencies and schools, and demonstrate what people working together for the community’s good can accomplish.

Kids and adults came out for the 3rd Annual “Love the Court” community event at Friendship Court on Wednesday, August 9. The successful event, sponsored by Portico Church and Piedmont Housing Alliance, is a way to bring together people from the community to enjoy a night of fun before kids get ready to go back to school.

Several partners like the City of Charlottesville and PVCC’s adult career and education center were there to spread the word about programs in the community with the residents of Friendship Court. Several local barbershops, like Studio 360 and A Cut Above the Rest, were on site to offer free haircuts to kids. Leslie Brown of LLC Hair Studios was also on hand to provide styling services. Food was flowing and kids were bouncing from the dunking station, to the face painting, back to the basketball court, and to the bounce house. Desmond Glenn, Pastor of Community & Discipleship at Portico, said their goal is to keep bringing people together. “It’s all about creating relationships and loving our neighbors. We also try to make sure we are proactively seeking racial reconciliation,” Desmond says.

Thanks to community grants and donor support, Piedmont Housing Alliance is able to work with Jeanetha Brown-Douglas of JBD Mobile Catering to bring healthful, delicious meals to Friendship Court twice a week. This community meal schedule complements the community center afterschool activity and snack program and the Parks & Recreation enrichment program offerings. More than half of all Friendship Court residents are children (most under the age of 12). Nutrition is important to healthy development, but on an average household budget of less than $11,000, food budgets are tight. Jeanetha helps support nutrition and community building. Jeanetha also provides a great example of the creation and growth of a successful small woman-owned business. Piedmont Housing Alliance has worked with JBD Catering after Jeanetha participated in Piedmont Housing Alliance’s VIDA program, which helped her grow her savings and her business. She graduated from CIC (Community Investment Collaborative), a local business education program offering under-resourced local entrepreneurs education, micro-loans, mentoring, and networking. Since her first contract, Jeanetha has received other contracts and continues to build her catering business. She is also proud to work with the City of Charlottesville’s Onesty Family Aquatic Center (Meade Pool) to provide healthy snacks to the children and families who frequent the center over the summer months. Jeanetha says, “I love to give back to the kids!”

Having an adequate meal is vital for nutrition, but it is also a way to connect Friendship Court children to community, technology, education, and health.

JBD Mobile Catering helping feed the kids a hot and healthy meal is helping lay the foundation for a successful future of Friendship Court.

Friendship Court residents gathered on February 16th at the community center to learn and share ideas about the future redevelopment over dinner with neighbors. Residents engaged with Piedmont Housing Alliance staff and the Grimm and Parker architectural team working on Phase 1 of the redevelopment. Residents interacted with photos of other housing communities and answered the questions: What are your favorite things about Friendship Court? What do you want us to know about your community? Residents also talked with and gave feedback to other community partners related to City street planning and Charlottesville City Schools. A delicious dinner was provided by Afghan Kabob and Wayside Chicken. Kids got to indulge in fun photo booth activities during the night. Residents are encouraged to talk with Community Organizer Claudette Grant at the community center and to join us for quarterly community dinner meetings scheduled for May 11th, August 17th and November 16th.

The Friendship Court Advisory Committee continues to meet monthly. Their February meeting will include a kick-off meeting with members of recently-formed work groups focused on creating an Early Childhood Education Center and a Workforce Development Program. The Advisory Committee will also discuss ongoing resident engagement to inform physical and programmatic aspects of the redevelopment.

If I had to say one thing about the plans to refurbish and renovate Friendship Court, it would be this: what we do in this place has to work for the people who live there NOW.

We don’t want to do what happened at Vinegar Hill when an entire community was displaced. In fact, we want to do the OPPOSITE of what happened at Vinegar Hill. If it doesn’t work for the current residents, it doesn’t work for us.

And the only way we can know what works for the residents is to ask them, and we’ve already begun that process. We are eager to hear how we can improve the living experience all the people who live in the 150 apartments that make up this development.

What we DO know, is that on completion, Friendship Court will continue to include housing for all 150 families who live here now as well as workforce housing and some market-rate houses. We also want to be sure we incorporate green space and business opportunities – including opportunities that provide jobs for residents. Our goal is to give Friendship Court residents training in skilled trades – carpentry, masonry, plumbing, and the like – and jobs in construction on the site. Additionally, we also see some non-residential uses there such as a sliding-scale health center in partnership with Central Virginia Health Services and an Early Childhood Learning Center with affordable day care and a pre-K program for our kids . . . plus learning opportunities for adults in the evenings.

That said, we have made NO PLANS. We cannot even begin that process until we have received real and substantial input from the current residents. But we do have ideas, and at the top of that idea list is the imperative that we keep the Friendship Court community intact and the project affordable for the families that live there now. Our job is to unlock the potential of this valuable piece of real estate for the benefit of the people who live there now and to make whatever we do both environmentally and economically sustainable over the long run.

We have an opportunity to make the redevelopment of Friendship Court a national model for the redevelopment of affordable housing across the country. We hope that our work at Friendship Court can be a model for others in Charlottesville and across the country in how to residents can create the future for their own communities.

The bottom line is that we have great faith in the power and the wisdom of the residents of Friendship Court to plan their own future.